Sesame Street
Sesame Street is an educational
American children's television series designed for
preschoolers, and is recognized as a pioneer of the contemporary standard which combines
education and entertainment in
children's television shows.
Sesame Street is well known for the inclusion of the
Muppet characters created by the
puppeteer Jim Henson. More than 4,000 episodes of the show have been produced in 36 seasons, which distinguishes it as one of the longest-running shows in television history.
Sesame Street is produced in the
United States by
Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW). It premiered on
November 10,
1969 on the
National Educational Television network, and later that year it was moved to NET's successor, the
Public Broadcasting Service.
Because of its positive influence,
Sesame Street has earned the distinction of being the foremost and most highly regarded
educator of young people in the world.
[Karen Barss et al., "Enhancing Education: A Children's Producer's Guide: Sesame Street: Case Study", Corporation for Public Broadcasting (accessed June 29, 2005)] No television series has matched its level of recognition and success on the international stage. The original series has been televised in 120
countries,
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit] and more than 20 international versions have been produced, not including
dubs. The series has received 109
Emmy Awards, more than any other series in television history.
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit] An estimated 75 million Americans watched the series as children;
[Michael Jay Friedman, Washington File: Honored children's show popular throughout the world, 8 April 2006.] millions more have watched around the world, or as parents.
Sesame Street uses a combination of puppets, animation, and live actors to teach young children the fundamentals of reading (letter and word recognition) and arithmetic (numbers, addition and subtraction), as well as geometric forms, cognitive processes, and classification. Since the show's inception, other instructional goals have focused on basic life skills, such as how to cross the road safely and the importance of proper hygiene and healthy eating habits.
There is also a subtle sense of humor on the show that has appealed to older viewers since it first premiered, and was devised as a means to encourage parents and older siblings to watch the series with younger children, and thus become more involved in the learning process rather than letting
Sesame Street act as a babysitter. A number of parodies of popular culture appear, especially ones aimed at the , the network that broadcasts the show. For example, the recurring segment
Monsterpiece Theatre once ran a sketch called "Me Claudius". Children viewing the show might enjoy watching
Cookie Monster and the
Muppets, while adults watching the same sequence may enjoy the spoof of the
Masterpiece Theatre production of
I, Claudius on PBS.
|
Some of the show's most authentic and memorable moments were unscripted conversations between Muppets, such as Grover (above) or Kermit, with real children. |
Several of the character names used on the program are puns or cultural references aimed at a slightly older audience, including Flo Bear (Flaubert),
Sherlock Hemlock (a
Sherlock Holmes parody), H. Ross Parrot (based on Reform Party founder
Ross Perot), Dr. Feel based on
Dr. Phil, and a
Jack Bauer Muppet in a parody of
24 (TV series). Over two hundred notable personalities have made guest appearances on the show, beginning with
Carol Burnett on the first episode, and ranging from performers like
James Brown to political figures such as
Kofi Annan.
[Michael Jay Friedman, Washington File: Honored children's show popular throughout the world, 8 April 2006. Annan was actually on his way to Norway to accept the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.] By making a show that not only educates and entertains kids, but also keeps parents entertained and involved in the educational process, the producers hope to inspire discussion about the concepts on the show.
In 1999, the series became the longest running American children's program, taking the title from
Captain Kangaroo. The British series
Blue Peter still retains the worldwide record.
[Note that Bozo's Circus technically retains the title for longest running American children's series, however most of its run was only in local markets.] The series has made many published lists, including greatest all-time show compilations by
TV Guide and
Entertainment Weekly. Nielsen Media Research has found that 99% of American preschoolers recognise the series' characters.
[Sesame Street Live Press Kit, Minneapolis MN: Vee Corporation, 2004.] Another study** found that 81% of kids under the age of six own a
Sesame Street toy or game, and 87% own a book based on the series.
[Sesame Street Live Press Kit, Minneapolis MN: Vee Corporation, 2004.] |
From A Celebration of Me, Grover, showing much of the main cast of Sesame Street. Left to right, a penguin, Elmo, Zoe, Big Bird, Grover, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster. |
The series's music has appeared on music charts around the world, including Ernie's "Rubber Duckie" song, which made #16 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970; the song achieved an even higher position in Germany. In 1992, British band
Smart E's released
Sesame's Treet, a
techno dance track which sampled the "classic" version of the
Sesame Street theme. It reached #2 on the
UK singles chart.
[David Roberts (Managing Editor) et al., Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles & Albums (Eighteenth Edition), 2005, ISBN 1904994008] Sesame Street has won 11** Grammy Awards, most recently for 2001 release
Elmo and the Orchestra.
Main article: History of Sesame Street
The show's original format called for the humans to be shown in plots on the street, intermixed with the segments of animation, live-action shorts and
Muppets. These segments were created to be like commercials—quick, catchy and memorable—and made the learning experience much more like fun. The format became a model for what is known today as
edutainment-based programs.
CTW aired the program for test groups to determine if the revolutionary new format was likely to succeed. Results showed that test watchers were entranced when the ad-like segments aired, especially those with the jovial puppets, but were remarkably less interested in the street scenes. Psychologists warned CTW against a mixture of fantasy and reality elements, but producers soon decided to mix the elements. A simple dose of cartoon-like characters let the humans deliver messages without causing viewers to lose interest.
[David Borgenicht, Sesame Street Unpaved. Hyperion, 1998.]Sesame Street, along with several other
Sesame Workshop–produced shows (such as
The Electric Company, which was produced when Sesame Workshop was still CTW) are all taped in
New York City. Originally they were taped at the
Teletape Studios at 81st and Broadway in Manhattan, but the bankruptcy of Teletape's parent company, Reeves Entertainment, forced these productions to move to
Kaufman Astoria Studios in neighboring
Queens.
The brownstone architecture of
Sesame Street,
a fictional neighborhood in New York City, as well as the concept of neighbors from different backgrounds living in the same area and sharing their life experiences, is based on a neighborhood in
Brooklyn called
Brooklyn Heights, where the creators of
Sesame Street lived when the show began.
The show is broadcast worldwide; in addition to the U.S. version, many countries have locally-produced versions adapted to local needs, some with their own characters, and in a variety of different languages. Broadcasts in
Australia and
New Zealand began in 1971. In
Canada, beginning in 1970, 15-minute shows called
Canada's Sesame Street were broadcast, and by 1972 an edited version of the one-hour American program was airing featuring specially filmed Canadian segments. In 1995 the American version was replaced by a half-hour long all-Canadian version of the series entitled
Sesame Park. Since the original
Sesame Street was still accessible to Canadians, and more familiar, the format change didn't find acceptance with audiences and was taken off the air in 2002. 120 countries have aired the show, many of which partnered with Sesame Workshop to create local versions.
The series airs currently on PBS (United States), and MediaCorp TV12 Kids Central (Singapore).
In recent years
Sesame Street has made what area educators consider to be critical advances in its international versions. In the late 1990s versions appeared in
China and
Russia as these countries shifted away from communism. There is also a joint
Israeli-
Palestinian-
Jordanian project, called
Sesame Stories, which was created with the goal of promoting greater cultural understanding.
The show has also spawned the spin-off series
Play with Me Sesame, the "classics" show
Sesame Street Unpaved, and the segment-only series
Open Sesame.
Elmo's World and
Global Grover, both of which are segments of
Sesame Street, have been distributed as individual series.
Funding
Funding for season 37 of Sesame Street is provided by the
Corporation For Public Broadcasting, a
Ready To Learn grant in partnership with the
No Child Left Behind Act and the
U.S. Department of Education, the
McDonald's Corporation,
Beaches Family Resorts,
Pampers and EverydayKidz.com from
Astra Zeneca. Major funding for Sesame Street is provided by
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1972-1998, 2000) and by contributions to your
PBS stations from "
Viewers Like You." Previous donors of funding for
Sesame Street included
Chuck E. Cheese's, the
Ford Foundation,
Discovery Zone,
AOL (2002) and the
Carnegie Corporation of New York. Occasionally local businesses and organizations fund local telecasts of
Sesame Street on PBS stations throughout the U.S. For example, the
W. M. Keck Foundation underwrites the broadcast of Sesame Street on
KCET in Los Angeles.
The show actually parodies sponsorships and endorsements, by ending the program with the claim that
"Sesame Street is brought to you today by" whatever letter and number was featured in the episode's segments.
[Until the mid-1990s, the series included two letter "sponsors" per episode.]Ratings
As a result of its success in revolutionizing the standards of children's television,
Sesame Street inadvertently diminished its own audience share. According to PBS Research, the show went from a 2.0 average on
Nielsen Media Research's "people meters" in 1995–96 to a 1.3 average in 2000–01. Even with this decrease,
Sesame Street's viewership in an average week came from roughly 5.6 million households with 7.5 million viewers. This placed
Sesame at 8th place in the overall kids' charts, as of 2002. The program fares better among mothers aged 18–49 who had children under the age of 3, taking second place.
A format change helped the show's ratings, boosting them up 31% in February 2002 among children aged 2 to 5, in comparison to its ratings in 2001. As of 2005,
Sesame Street and three other PBS shows are in the top 10 shows for children aged 2 to 5.
[http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/1018pbscharacter1019.html] As of season 36 in 2005, there were eight million viewers daily.
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit]See also: Characters that are Exclusive to books or movies, Grouches, Monsters, celebrities, from international versions. Also Characters ordered by date of debut, Characters ordered by last known appearanceSesame Street is known for its
multicultural element and is inclusive in its casting, incorporating roles for disabled people, young people, senior citizens, Hispanic actors, Black actors, and others. While some of the puppets look like people, others are animal or "monster" puppets of different sizes and colors. This encourages children to believe that people come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and that no particular physical "type" is any better than another. Jim Henson commented that "The only kids who can identify along racial lines with the Muppets have to be either green or orange."
[Phylis Feinstein, All About Sesame Street. 1970."]In harmony with its multiculturalist perspective, the show pioneered the idea of occasionally inserting very basic Spanish words and phrases to help young children become acquainted with the concept of a foreign language, doing so almost three decades before
Dora the Explorer made her debut on
Nickelodeon. Perhaps in response to the popularity of Dora, the recently revamped format gives
Rosita, the bilingual muppet who "emigrated" in 1993 from the Mexican version of the show, more time in front of viewers, and also introduced the more formalized "Spanish Word of the Day" in every episode.
Each of the puppet characters has been designed to represent a specific stage or element of early childhood, and the scripts are written so that the character reflects the development level of children of that age. This helps the show address not only the learning objectives of various age groups, but also the concerns, fears, and interests of children of different age levels.
The Muppets
Big Bird is an 8'2"-tall yellow
canary who lives in a large nest on an abandoned lot which is located behind 123 Sesame Street's garbage heap. Big Bird is often visited by his friend
Aloysius Snuffleupagus, who is a very large, brown wooly elephant-like creature and is known more popularly by his nickname "Snuffy". Various other snuffleupaguses have appeared on the show from time to time, most notably Snuffy's little sister Alice and his unnamed mother. Initially, Snuffy was figured as a figment of Big Bird's imagination, other Sesame Street characters never seeing him. In the mid-1980s, however, Snuffy was revealed to be "real" and incorporated into the regular cast of the show.
Oscar the Grouch, who loves trash, lives with his pet worm
Slimey and his pet elephant
Fluffy in a garbage can in the heap.
Bert and Ernie, two of the most-recognized Muppets, are friends who room together in the basement apartment of 123 Sesame Street, and regularly engage in comic routines which showcase their odd-couple personalities. Ernie's flowerbox was once a hotspot for
Twiddlebugs, a colorful family of insects.
The Bear family, which resembles the bears of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, resides in
Sesame Street. This Jewish family, headed by
Papa Bear and
Mama Bear, welcomed their second child
Curly Bear, and
Baby Bear became a good friend of the monsters
Telly and
Zoe, Mexico-born
Rosita, and the furry, red preschooler
Elmo. Elmo has his own segment near the end of each episode, in which viewers explore topics in
Elmo's World, an imaginary version of his house. New to
Sesame Street is
Abby Caddaby, a
fairy-in-training who attends Storybook Community School with Baby Bear.
Grover's regular segment,
Global Grover, follows the self-described "cute, furry monster" around the world as he explores local cultures and traditions.
Cookie Monster fights with his conscience daily during
Letter of the Day, as he tries to control his urges to eat the letters, shown as icing on cookies.
Prairie Dawn often attempts to help Cookie Monster refrain from eating the letters, but never succeeds and always leaves frazzled.
Count von Count has fewer problems during the
Number of the Day segment, where he indulges in counting until the mystery number is revealed by his pipe organ.
Humphrey and Ingrid are a married couple who have a baby named
Natasha, and they are the proprietors of the hotel known as
The Furry Arms, which is located near the Sesame Street Subway station. The hotel's bellhop,
Benny Rabbit, tends to be easily irritated, but begrudgingly helps out.
Kermit the Frog hosted the segment
Sesame Street News Flash. In other segments, Kermit would play
straight man to the wacky antics of other Muppets. The
Two-Headed Monster sounded out words coming together, and the
Yip-Yip aliens discovered telephones and typewriters. For two seasons,
Googel,
Narf,
Mel and
Phoebe hung out in the
Monster's Clubhouse.
Incidental characters include television personality
Guy Smiley, construction workers
Sully and Biff, the large
Herry Monster (who does not know his own strength), and
The Big Bad Wolf, who is not a terror to the Street.
Forgetful Jones, a cowboy with a short-term memory disorder, rode his trusty Buster the Horse with his girlfriend Clementine, and
Rodeo Rosie was an early cowgirl.
The humans
 |
Characters on the show, like Bob, have great longevity compared to like series. This still is from the closing sequence of an early season. Linda was television's longest appearing character with a disability, while Luis is the longest running Hispanic character.[Michael Jay Friedman, Washington File: Honored children's show popular throughout the world, 8 April 2006.] Gordon and Susan may hold such an honor for longest running African-American characters. |
Main article: Human characters on Sesame Street
A slate of human regulars pull the zaniness of the Muppets back to reality. They were not always meant to serve this purpose. The show lost test viewers' attention during the Street Scenes, meaning Muppets needed to be added, to hide the fact it was educational.
Music teacher Bob has been on
Sesame Street since its inception. He dated
Linda the local
New York Library librarian, who was the first regular deaf character on television. Linda owns
Barkley, a Muppet dog. The Robinsons are an African-American family that includes schoolteacher Gordon, nurse Susan, and adopted son Miles. The Puerto Rican Rodriguez Family include Maria and Luis, who ran the
Fix-It Shop, which was turned into the
Mail-It Shop; Maria gave birth to daughter Gabby in the 1980s, and her
pregnancy was covered on the show.
Candy store operator Harold Hooper, played by actor
Will Lee, was a mainstay at
Mr. Hooper's Store. When Lee died in 1982, the producers opted to help their young viewers deal with the death of someone they loved rather than cast a new actor in the role, and the character's death was discussed in a landmark 1983 episode.
[While Mr. Hooper's death is considered by most as a landmark in children's television, this wasn't the first death in a children's program. Upon the 1973 death of George Woodbridge, who played the titular character in the British series Inigo Pipkin, the third season of the show dealt with the character's passing. The series was renamed Pipkins, to reflect the change in cast.] Afterwards, Hooper's apprentice David took over, followed by later owners Gina, Mr. Handford, and Alan. Gina stopped running the store in the 1990s, to earn a PhD and became a veterinarian.
Mr. Noodle and his brother and sister, who appear only in
Elmo's World are meant to provide a vaudevillian perspective on subjects, contrary to most of the show's current human characters (though reminiscent of such earlier insert characters as Buddy and Jim, Larry and Phyllis, and The Mad Painter).
[Muppet Wiki: Character Pairs]Famous guest stars[Sesame Street even turned to relative star-wattage for its theme song, "(Can you tell me how to get, how to get to) Sesame Street". Harmonica legend Toots Thielemans wrote the song in 1969, and played a harmonica solo in some versions of the sequence.] and various children from New York schools and day-care centers are a constantly changing part of the cast, including future celebrities like actor
Tyler James Williams, and rapper
GM Grimm.
Over the 36 seasons of
Sesame Street hundreds, if not thousands of people have worked on the show's cast and in their crew, producing Street scenes or segments, or working behind the scenes.
*
List of Sesame Street puppeteers*
Human characters on Sesame Street*
Crew of Sesame Street |
Basil the Bear from Canada's Sesame Park, in a knight's armour. |
Some countries have co-produced their own unique versions of
Sesame Street, in which the characters and segments represent their country's cultures. Other countries simply air a dubbed version of
Sesame Street, or a dubbed version of
Open Sesame. Among various other countries, Australia has and still does broadcast the American version on the ABC and the
UK had broadcast the American show, on
Channel 4 until 2001 when it was replaced with Henson production
The Hoobs.
Dubbed versions include
Seesamtie in Finnish,
Boneka Sesame in Indonesian,
Sesam Opnist Pû in Icelandic,
Sesamo Apriti in Italian,
Sezamé Otevri Se in Czech, and Malay
Taman Sesame. In 2004, one Japanese network cancelled the dubbed American
Sesame, while another created a local version. In
New Zealand, locally produced segments entitled "Korero
Māori" (in English: "let's speak Māori") were inserted into episodes to educate children in the
Māori language. Spanish program
La Cometa Blanca also includes segments from
Sesame Street.
Locally produced adaptations of
Sesame Street include:
* 1972: Vila Sésamo, Brazil
* 1972: Plaza Sésamo, Mexico
* 1973: Sesamstraße, Germany
* 1973: Canadian Sesame Street, Canada (reformatted as Sesame Park in the 1990s)
* 1976: Sesamstraat, Netherlands
* 1978: 1, rue Sesame, France
* 1979: Iftah Ya Simsim, Kuwait
* 1979: Barrio Sésamo, Spain
* 1981: Svenska Sesam, Sweden
* 1983: Rechov Sumsum, Israel
* 1984: Sesame! (Batibot), Philippines
* 1986: Susam Sokağı, Turkey
* 1989: Rua Sésamo, Portugal
* 1991: Sesam Stasjon, Norway
* 1996: Ulitsa Sezam, Russia
* 1996: Ulica Sezamkowa, Poland
* 1998: Rechov Sumsum and Shara'a Simsim, Israel and Palestinian Territories |
* 1998: Zhima Jie, China
* 1999: Sesame English, Taiwan, China, Italy
* 2000: Takalani Sesame, South Africa
* 2000: Alam Simsim, Egypt
* 2004: Koche Sesame, Afghanistan
* 2004: Sesame Street, Japan
* 2005: Sisimpur, Bangladesh
* 2005: 5, Rue Sésame, France
* 2005: Sabai Sabai Sesame, Cambodia
* 2006: Galli Galli Sim Sim, India
* 2007?: Sesame Street (Northern Ireland)[[1] [2]]
* 2007?: Sesame Brazil
* Hikayat Simsim, Jordan, Hikayat Simsim, Palestine, Shippuray Sumsum, Israel
* Iftah Ya Simsim, Kuwait |
Note that dates solely refer to the year production on the series began. |
Sesame Street was one of the first kids television series devoted to promoting the arts. The art of Keith Haring, filmmaking of William Wegman and his Weimaraner dogs, Big Bird conducting the Boston Pops, or simply Telly Monster playing a triangle. |
Sesame Street has operated with a rigorous research standard since its foundation, to ensure that the programming is addressing the needs of its viewers. The Education and Research (E&R) department of Sesame Workshop is currently headed by
Rosemarie T. Truglio, Ph.D. and
Jeanette Betancourt, Ed.D.. Truglio states that the level of interaction between E&R, Content, and Production is "[i]ntimately·hand-in-hand. They are not creating anything without our knowledge, our guidance and our review. We are involved in content development across all media platforms."
[[3]] This close-knit organizational structure has been an integral part of Sesame Workshop since it began.
Writers create plots for
Sesame Street scenes and segments, and the content is reviewed by the E&R team, which has authority to reject a script and force rewrites if the content is not acceptable. When a script is factually correct, but includes gray areas that may not be comprehensible to children, the writers and E&R work together to tweak everything. "A balance between content and humor"
[[4]] is always pursued, according to Truglio.
In a national study of American mothers with children under age six, 64% responded that they strongly believe
Sesame Street is a leader and innovator in educational methods.
[Sesame Street Live Press Kit, Minneapolis MN: Vee Corporation, 2004.]Since 1998 Sesame Workshop has provided great volumes of content on its website
[Sesame Workshop Parents] and others such as
Random House.
[Random House: Introduction to Sesame Beginnings] Content ranges from birth to school-age, and includes information on dozens of topics, such as appropriate parenting techniques, dealing with children's fears, development of literacy, and maintenance of good health.
Research is funded by government grants, corporate and private donations (including, recently, The Prudential Foundation for the Sesame Beginnings program), and the profits gained from the sale of Sesame Workshop merchandise.
Healthy Habits for Life
In 2005,
Sesame Street launched its
Healthy Habits for Life programming, to encourage young viewers to lead more active and nutritious lifestyles. A major catalyst for this was data published by the US
Centers for Disease Control regarding
obesity in children.
Health content has existed on
Sesame Street for years, but to a limited extent. In one instance press kits for a project were made available, news wires latched onto the story, and literally hundreds of newspapers reported that Cookie Monster was "going on a diet". In actuality there was no change to Cookie Monster's character. The new season featured a new segment with rapper
Wyclef Jean singing the praises of fruits and vegetables, similar to segments in the 1990s which featured Cookie doing nearly the same.
According to people from Sesame Workshop,
The Workshop formed an Advisory Board consisting of experts such as
Woodie Kessel, M.D., M.P.H., the Assistant
Surgeon General of the United States. This board examines the research of other organizations, and also conducts pilot studies to determine which areas of research should be expanded, based on social, ethnic and socio-economic sections of the population.
Characters Elmo and Rosita filmed
public service announcements with various US Governors in 2006.
[United States Governors Join Sesame Street's Elmo and Rosita to Encourage Healthy Habits in Children, April 24, 2006; Governors Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Frank Murkowski (R-AK), Felix Perez Camacho (R-GU), Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID), Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS), Kathleen Blanco (D-LA), Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), Kenny Guinn (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Ancibal Acevendo-Vila (D-PR), Bob Taft (R-OH), Don Carcieri (R-RI) with his wife, Sue Carcieri, Jon Huntsman (R-UT), Jim Douglas (R-VT) and Joe Manchin III (D-WV).] |
Fat Blue (left) with Grover, in A Celebration of Me, Grover. Over the course of the show, many hundreds of Muppet skits have been accumulated, allowing the Workshop to release full-length collections of skits, like the aforementioned. |
Sesame Street is known for its extensive merchandising, which includes many books, magazines, video/audio media, and toys. A percentage of the money from any Sesame Workshop product goes to help fund
Sesame Street or its international co-productions.
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit]Current licensors include
Fisher-Price,
Nakajima USA,
Build-A-Bear Workshop (Build-An-Elmo and Build-A-Cookie Monster),
Hasbro (
Sesame Street Monopoly),
Wooly Willy,
Betty Crocker (Elmo Fruit Snacks),
C&D Visionary (air freshners) and
Children's Apparel Network. Former liscencees include
Atari,
Nintendo,
Applause,
Child Dimension,
Gibson Greetings,
Gorham Fine China,
Ideal Toys,
Milton Bradley Company,
Palisades Toys,
Questor,
Radio Shack,
Tyco, and the
Western Publishing Company.
Creative Wonders (a partnership between
ABC and
Electronic Arts) produced Sesame Street software for the
PC, since at least 1996. Before going bankrupt,
Palisades Toys was to release a line of deluxe series action figures, for adults, as part of Sesame Workshop's push to expand into retro products for teens and adults.
Tickle Me Elmo was one of the fastest selling toy of the 1996 season. Elmo starred in a
Christmas special that year, in which he wished every day of the year was Christmas.
[, accessed in EBSCOhost.]Its fiction books are published on five continents, primarily by
Random House in North America. Over 18 million
Sesame Street books and magazines were purchased in 2005.
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit] The books often mention that children do not have to watch the show to benefit from its publications.
Live touring show
Sesame Street Live presents costumed actors and dancers as characters from the series, in original plots. In recent years, VEE has had four touring casts, each performing a unique multi-million dollar budget show. Each season, the tours reach 160 different cities across North America, reaching 2 million people annually. Since the first production of
Sesame Street Live on 17 September 1980, 48 million children and their parents seen the show performed, across the world.
[Sesame Street Live Press Kit, Minneapolis MN: Vee Corporation, 2004.]Langhorne, Pennsylvania, United States is the longtime home to
Sesame Street theme park
Sesame Place. New to the park for summer 2006 are three new rides themed to the popular
Elmo's World segments. Another theme park,
Parque Plaza Sésamo, exists in
Monterrey,
Mexico, and
Universal Studios Japan includes a three-dimensional movie based on the show.
The
Sesame Beginnings line, launched in mid-2005, consists of apparel, health and body, home, and seasonal products. The products in this line are designed to accentuate the natural interactivity between infants and their parents. Most of the line is exclusive to a family of Canadian retailers that includes
Loblaws,
Fortinos, and
Zehrs.
Although
Sesame Street characters occasionally endorse non-educational products, they never appear in their puppet form, to limit the suggestion to children that the characters are formally endorsing the product. The Muppets do appear in puppet form to endorse select causes. Big Bird has promoted safe seating practices and the wearing of seatbelts, for the
Ford Motor Company,
[, accessed through EBSCOhost.] while Grover promoted a new course on children's informal learning, created by
Harvard University with Sesame Workshop.
[ The course itself was developed by professor Joseph Blatt, who told Education Week "it focuses on how to harness the positive power of the media to improve children's health, particularly problems that stem from alarming levels of obesity among youngsters nationwide." Guests to the course include Sesame Workshop staff. Students are required to pitch media projects to promote healthy behaviors among 6- to 9-year-olds to Sesame executives at the end of the course.] Elmo has appeared before the US Education Appropriations Subcommittee to urge more spending on music in schools.
[Bruce Morton, "Mr. Elmo goes to Washington". Atlanta, GA: CNN, 24 April 2002. Note that the characters of Sesame Street have a major presence in Washington. President Clinton's 1997 inaugural guests included Elmo. (, through EBSCOhost.)]Internationally
Plaza Sésamo, Sesamstraße, and Sesamstraat have all had merchandise of their local characters. Shalom Sesame videos and books have also been released.
The Licensing Company Ltd. owns the British rights to
Sesame Street. Its licensees include
Reed Books Children's Publishing for books.
[, through EBSCOhost.] In 2004,
Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (CPLG) became Sesame Workshop's licensing representative for
The Benelux.
Website
Sesame Street's website was one of the first to include educational materials, for both parents and children. "There are downloadable games plus number and alphabet coloring pages for the children. Their parents can consult references covering everything from how to comb their baby's hair to how to play with their 4-year-old."
[, accessed through EBSCOhost.] The website has been recommended by academic journals.
[, accessed through EBSCOhost.] It receives over 1 million visitors daily.
[Sesame Workshop: Sesame Street Season 37 Press Kit]A series of
Sesame Street telefilms have featured the characters on day trips or in foreign countries.
Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1983) saw the cast locked in the gallery overnight; Big Bird and Snuffy help a cursed boy pharaoh. NBC's
Big Bird in China (1983) followed Big Bird, Barkley, and their new friend Xiao Foo traveling through China to find Feng Huang, the
Phoenix bird. In
Big Bird in Japan (1988), the titular character gets lost.
Out to Lunch (1974) features the cast of
Sesame Street and
The Electric Company taking over
ABC News. Big Bird turned six in
Big Bird's Birthday or Let Me Eat Cake (1991), despite being referred to as four years old previously.
CinderElmo (1999) was a FOX special, with
Keri Russell as the princess look for her match among the kingdom. Telly fears what the
New Year will bring in
Sesame Street Stays Up Late! (1993, DVD in 2004).
Various strictly musical programs have been made.
Julie Andrews and
Perry Como performed with the Muppets on
Julie on Sesame Street (1974).
Evening at Pops: 1971 and
Evening at Pops: 2001 are two special episodes of PBS series
Evening at Pops variety show have featured
Sesame Street characters. The
Sesame Street Special (1988) also included many guest performances.
Holiday special
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978) won an Emmy Award, while another special that year,
A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978), has mostly unfavourable reviews. Anniversary specials include
A Walking Tour of Sesame Street with James Earl Jones (1979),
Sesame Street: 20 And Still Counting (1989),
All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever (1994) and
Sesame Street Jam: A Musical Celebration (1994), and
The Street We Live On (2004).
Jon Stewart is set to host a "live" retrospective on the series on ABC, but is accidentally locked in his dressing with the tapes. Elmo attempt to salvage the show, improvised, in
Elmopalooza! (1998).
In 1987 and 1992, episodes of
Shalom Sesame were produced, focusing on introducing Jewish culture, customs, and language to
Jewish-American children. International co-productions of
Sesame Street have created many of their own specials as well.
The characters have made appearance on television series including
Between the Lions (2001),
The Electric Company (1972, 1975),
Emeril Live (2005),
Fanfare,
The Flip Wilson Show (1970),
The Frugal Gourmet (1992, 1995, 1997),
Hollywood Squares,
Jeopardy!,
Martha (2006),
Martha Stewart Living,
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1981),
Soul Man (1998),
The Torkelsons (1991),
The West Wing (2004),
What's My Line?, and numerous talk shows and mornings shows, ranging from
The Ed Sullivan Show to the
The Today Show.
Characters have also appeared on specials and videos not related to the series, including
The Grover Monster and Jean Marsh Cartoon Special (1975),
NBC Salutes the 25th Anniversary of the Wonderful World of Disney (1978),
The Road to China (1979),
I Love Liberty (1982),
Kathie Lee Gifford's Lullabies for Little Ones (1996), and
We Are Family (2005).
Feature films
 |
The Street We Live On DVD cover depicts (counter-clockwise from left) Elmo, Zoe, Grover, and Ernie. |
Two feature films based on the series have been made.
Co-produced with
Warner Bros., 1985 film
Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird revolved around authorities forcing Big Bird into adoption. Big Bird gets homesick and tired of his adoptive parents, and heads back to New York, when he is kidnapped by evil carnies (
Dave Thomas and
Joe Flaherty); the residents of Sesame Street launch a cross-country search to find him.
In the second
Sesame Street theatrical film, called
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, fourteen years after
Follow That Bird in 1999,
Elmo spends time with his favorite blanket. After
Zoe accidentally tears the blanket, when Elmo refuses to share, the blanket winds up in
Grouchland, ruled by the
Queen of Trash (
Vanessa Williams). Elmo ventures forth, to rescue his blanket from the villainous
Huxley (
Mandy Patinkin). Soon, the rest of the
Sesame Street gang follow in pursuit.
There has been unsubstansiated rumours that another movie featuring Elmo will be made.
[ Peter Sciretta, "Elmo's World: The Movie?", /film, July 4 2006.]Some educators criticized the show when it debuted, feeling that it would only worsen children's attention spans. This concern still exists today, although there is no conclusive proof of this being the case, even after more than 35 seasons of televised shows.
In a letter to the
Boston Globe,
Boston University professor of education Frank Garfunkel commented "If what people want is for their children to memorize numbers and letters without regard to their meaning or use " without regard to the differences between children, then Sesame Street is truly responsive. To give a child thirty seconds of one thing and then to switch it and give him thirty seconds of another is to nurture irrelevance."
In the magazine
Childhood Education, Minnie P. Berson of
SUNY Fredonia asked "Why debase the art form of teaching with phony pedagogy, vulgar sideshows, bad acting, and layers of smoke and fog to clog the eager minds of small children?"
For an animation on the letter "J", the writers included "a day in jail" at a time when words beginning with "J" were sparse. This drew criticism from
San Francisco Chronicle columnist
Terrence O'Flaherty, despite executive producer David Connell's assertion that kids are familiar with the word through shows like
Batman and
Superman.
The series also met with criticism in its attempts to help the underprivileged. Educator Sister Mary Mel O'Dowd worried that the show might start to replace "personalized experiences". "If Sesame Street is the only thing ghetto kids have, I don't think it's going to do much good. It never hurts a child to be able to count to ten or recognize the letters of the alphabet. But without the guidance of a teacher, he'll be like one of our preschoolers who was able to write 'CAUTION' on the blackboard after seeing it on the back of so many buses, and told me 'That says STOP.'"
Though it is widely beloved, like a number of
PBS shows (notably
WGBH's
Postcards From Buster)
Sesame Street has long had to contend with those who disagree with its social content.
Gerald S. Lesser comments in his book
Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street that the show faced hostility in the southern United States when it first aired because it portrayed people of various races mingling peacefully. Stations in Mississippi and other states refused to air the show. At least one newspaper editor in the South said that
Sesame Street tries to corrupt children from an early age by promoting
race-mixing,
lesbianism,
feminism, and
Communism. Similar complaints can still be found today, where writers object to the show's multicultural indoctrination.
While there are various rumors that have been created about the series, a few of which have been widely perpetuated over the years.
It has widely been suggested that
Bert and Ernie are a
homosexual couple, as they are apparently adult human males portrayed sharing a bedroom, though with separate beds. A 1980 collection of humorous essays by
Kurt Andersen, titled
The Real Thing, made light of the growing rumor. "Bert and Ernie conduct themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do. They do their jobs well and live a splendidly settled life together in an impeccably decorated cabinet."
The pair's relationship bears similarity to that of
Laurel and Hardy, who were also occasionally shown sleeping together; this became such a comedy staple as to be adopted by
Morecambe and Wise in the 1970s, all of whom were similarly asexual.
The Odd Couple is another, more apposite, contemporary comparison.
In 1990, puppeteer
Jim Henson's death spurred rumors that Ernie would be "killed off" the show, much the way the character of Mr. Hooper was after actor Will Lee's passing some years earlier. Rumor said that he would be either killed by a vehicle,
AIDS, or
cancer. There was no legitimacy to this rumor, but because producers took their time recasting a puppeteer for Ernie, the delay allowed the claims to burgeon. A spokesperson for the series was quoted as saying "Ernie is not dying of aids, Ernie is not dying of leukemia. Ernie is a puppet".
[Graham, Jefferson. "Muppet Ernie Is Doing Just Fine." USA Today. 30 April 1992 (p. D3).; Herrmann, Brenda. "Ernie Rumor Just Won't Die." Chicago Tribune. 10 November 1992 (p. C1).; Lender, Jon. "Rest Assured, Ernie the Puppet Has Never Felt Better." Hartford Courant. 23 November 1992 (p. B1).; Barbara Mikkelson, Urban Legends Reference Pages: Toe Tag Ernie, 14 December 1997.]In
2002, Sesame Workshop announced that an
HIV-positive character would be introduced to
Takalani Sesame, the
South African version of the show. Many conservatives and religious groups wrongly presumed that the American version would be getting a "gay Muppet", presumably because of the early historical connection between gays and HIV in the US, but the HIV-positive character is only present on this international version of the show. The character,
Kami, contracted HIV from a blood transfusion as an infant.
*
The Annual Sesame Street Cookie Baking Contest*
Muppets*
Pop culture influenced by Sesame Street (including
Wonder Showzen and
Avenue Q)
Lists:*
Sesame Street episode list*
Sesame Street, Season 4,
5,
34,
35Footnotes
References
* David Borgenicht,
Sesame Street Unpaved: Scripts, Stories, Secrets, and Songs, 1998 and 2002 reprint, ISBN 1402893272
* Caroll Spinney, J. Milligan,
The Wisdom of Big Bird: (And the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch): Lessons from a Life in Feathers, 2003, ISBN 0375507817
* Christopher Finch,
Jim Henson: The Works - The Art, the Magic, the Imagination, 1993, ISBN 0679412034
* Shalom M. Fisch, Rosemarie T. Truglio,
"G" Is for Growing: 30 Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, 2000, ISBN 0805833951
External links
*
*
Sesame Workshop*
Muppet Wiki: Sesame Street category*
Google Video: Sesame Street
